The present invention relates generally to a socket contact for an electrical connector and, more particularly, to a one-piece hooded socket contact.
Conventional hooded socket contacts for electrical connectors are formed of two pieces, namely, a hood and a contact body. The hood is usually formed of stainless steel and the body is formed of copper, or a copper alloy. The hood is pressed onto the body by complex machines. Such a contact is relatively expensive to produce.
In order to reduce the cost of a hooded socket contact, it is desirable to eliminate the separate hood, and form the contact out of one piece of metal. Such a one-piece hooded socket contact is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,139,256 to Seidler. Seidler teaches the forming of the spring fingers of the contact by making U-shaped cuts in the sheet metal blank from which the contact is formed, behind the forward edge of the blank. This results in a substantial amount of sheet metal material being disposed between the fingers, as well as in front of the fingers. When the forward region of the sheet metal blank is folded rearwardly and rolled to form the cylindrical hood of the contact, it is difficult to roll the metal and maintain the shape of the fingers and forward end of the hood due to the double wall construction of the contact resulting from the sheet metal material lying between and in front of the fingers. This problem is particularly acute for small size contacts, such as a size 16 (1.5 mm) contact or smaller.
It is the object of the present invention to provide a one-piece hooded socket contact designed in such a manner that the front end of the hood and the spring fingers of the contact will have the desired configuration even for small size contacts.